Entries for the 'Requirements Traceability' Category

Requirements traceability ensures that each business need is tied to an actual requirement, and that each requirement is tied to a deliverable. This is a valuable practice for the business analyst. According to A Guide to the Business Analyst’s Body of Knowledge, (BABOK 2.0), all requirements are “related to other requirements, to solution components, and to other artifacts such as test cases. . . . The goal of tracing is to ensure that requirements (and ultimately, solution components) are linked back to a business objective.”

As the process of capturing and documenting business requirements matures, there is often a watershed moment when an organization must decide whether to perform traceability of requirements as part of that process. Most companies involved with a formal methodology for software development utilize some degree of traceability; but those not familiar with it could be put off by the overhead of requirements management (RM), of which traceability is a component. Therefore, it helps to understand some of the value aspects of instituting traceability.